1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems for updating landmarks to be used for navigation, and navigation devices equipped in the systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to landmark update systems and navigation devices capable of keeping the most current landmark information for route guidance performed through the use thereof.
2. Description of the Background Art
A conventional type of navigation device typically equipped in a vehicle generally guides a driver by indicating, by name, at which intersection he/she is supposed to make a turn, or how far the intersection is from the vehicle. The issue here is, the driver may not easily find the indicated intersection on a display when his/her vehicle is far therefrom. Also, if guided as xe2x80x9cXX meters left to the intersectionxe2x80x9d, the driver may not intuitively grasp the actual distance to the intersection. Therefore, the driver may find it difficult to estimate in advance the rough location of the intersection. As such, guidance by the conventional navigation device is often found difficult to follow.
To get around such a problem, the recent type of navigation device displays various facilities located around the intersection, and makes use of those as landmarks when guiding vehicles. For example, guidance is made as xe2x80x9ctake a right turn at the post office, go straight till the gas station reached, and then take a left turn therexe2x80x9d.
As to those landmarks, information thereabout is required to be always accurate in route guidance, and is usually stored in media such as CDs and DVDs.
The issue here is, those landmarks do not remain the same, and for example, a gas station may move, be closed, or any other new gas station may be opened. In order to catch up with such changes, the medium having landmark information stored therein needs to be frequently replaced with another. However, such frequent replacement is practically difficult in terms of cost and time for manufacturers who have been so far doing the replacement, and consequently the reliability of the landmark information in the conventional navigation device becomes low.
Therefore, in order to easily keep landmark information always accurate for route guidance by navigation devices, an object of the present invention is to provide landmark update systems and navigation devices capable of easily deriving, at the time of route guidance, landmark information which is appropriately maintained by companies and retail shops who are to be displayed as landmarks.
The present invention has the following features to attain the object above.
A first aspect of the present invention is directed to a landmark update system for updating, to be the latest, landmark information which is displayed together with a route for route guidance. The landmark update system comprises a navigation device, a landmark server, and a retailer terminal. The navigation device performs route guidance through the use of landmark information which is determined as the latest based on incoming landmark information over a first communications line. The retailer terminal registers the latest landmark information to a landmark server by communicating with the landmark server over a second communications line. The landmark server communicates with the navigation device over the first communications line, and offers the latest landmark information which is registered. Further, to the landmark server over the first communications line, the navigation device transfers cumulative information which includes information about a landmark used during the route guidance. Based on the cumulative information transferred over the first communications line and information about the navigation device from which the cumulative information is transferred, the landmark server generates compilation data obtained by subjecting the cumulative information to a compilation process, and transfers the compilation data to the corresponding retailer terminal over the second communications line.
As described above, in the first aspect, in order to easily keep landmark information always accurate for route guidance by navigation devices, provided are landmark update systems and navigation devices capable of easily deriving, at the time of route guidance, landmark information which is appropriately maintained by companies and retail shops who are to be displayed as landmarks.
According to a second aspect, further to the first aspect, the retailer terminal refers to the compilation data transferred over the second communications line, and generates and registers new landmark information in a predetermined case.
As described above, in the second aspect, the retailer terminal determines the advertising effect by referring to the compilation data, and in a predetermined case, automatically generates and registers any new landmark information.
According to a third aspect, in further to the first aspect, the cumulative information includes the number of times a specific landmark is displayed to a user on the navigation device, and point information in which the user""s visit to the displayed landmark is scored.
As described above, in the third aspect, the cumulative information includes the number of times a specific landmark is displayed and its point. Therefore, by utilizing such information, the retailer terminal can know the advertising effect of the landmark.
According to a fourth aspect, further to the first aspect, the landmark information includes location information which indicates the location of a landmark, shape information which specifies the landmark by shape for display, and additional information which is displayed to the user together with the landmark.
As described above, in the fourth aspect, the landmark information includes additional information together with any other essential information for landmark display. Therefore, by using the additional information as companies"" advertisements, for example, the companies can have the merit of maintaining the landmark information, and the cost taken therefor can be reduced, whereby the frequency of updating the landmark information can be also reduced.
According to a fifth aspect, further to the fourth aspect, the landmark information further includes a display condition which indicates a predetermined condition for displaying the additional information.
As described above, in the fifth aspect, by changing conditions for displaying the additional information, any commercial information which is currently considered optimum is selected, for display, from those others covering various needs of the retail shops and companies represented as the landmarks.
According to a sixth aspect, further to the first aspect, the navigation device comprises: a cartographic data storage section for storing cartographic data; a landmark information storage section for storing the landmark information; a location detection section for detecting the user""s current location; a communications section for communicating with the landmark server over the first communications line; an output section for outputting the route guidance for display; an input section for inputting information needed at least for route search; a route selection section for selecting, responding to the information provided by the input section, a route from the user""s current location detected by the location detection section on the cartographic data; a landmark information management section for managing the landmark information stored in the landmark information storage section based on the latest landmark information received from the landmark server via the communications section if there needs to update landmark information corresponding to any landmark located on the route selected by the route selection section; and a guidance section for instructing the output section to display a map based on the cartographic data read from the cartographic data storage section, to display the route on the map displayed on the output section based on the route selected by the route selection section, and to perform landmark display on each appropriate location on the map displayed on the output section based on the landmark information read from the landmark information storage section. The landmark information management section generates the cumulative information based on information about what landmark is instructed by the guidance section to display and what landmark is used, and instructs the communications section to transfer the cumulative information.
As described above, in the sixth aspect, provided are landmark update systems enabling route guidance through the use of landmark information which is always accurate in navigation devices.
According to a seventh aspect, further to the sixth aspect, the guidance section refers to the user""s current location detected by the location section, and when it is determined that the user actually reaches a specific displayed landmark by utilizing the same, generates the cumulative information based on information about the utilized landmark.
As described above, in the seventh aspect, the cumulative information includes information about the point of a specific landmark, for example. Therefore, by utilizing such information, the retailer terminal can know the advertising effect of the landmark.
According to an eighth aspect, further to the sixth aspect, the navigation device further includes a real-time information acquisition section for acquiring real-time information which is a parameter indicating in what states various matters are. Based on the real-time information acquired by the real-time information acquisition section, the guidance section specifically determines landmark display.
As described above, in the eighth aspect, based on the change of the real-time information, any commercial information which is currently considered optimum is selected, for display, from those others covering various needs of the retail shops and companies represented as the landmarks.
According to a ninth aspect, further to the first aspect, the landmark server comprises: a cumulative information storage section for storing the cumulative information transferred from the navigation device over the first communications line together with the information about the navigation device from which the cumulative information is transferred; a cumulative information management section for generating the compilation data obtained by subjecting the cumulative information to the compilation process based on the cumulative information stored in the cumulative information storage section and the information about the navigation device, and transferring the compilation data to the corresponding retailer terminal over the second communications line; a registering landmark information storage section for storing the landmark information transferred from the retailer terminal over the second communications line; and a registering landmark information management section for transferring the landmark information stored in the registering landmark information storage section to the navigation section over the first communications line, if necessary, so that the landmark information is updated to be the latest for display to the user on the navigation device.
As described above, in the ninth aspect, provided are landmark update systems enabling route guidance through the use of landmark information which is always accurate in navigation devices, and feeding back information about whatever landmark used by the user to the retailer terminal.
According to a tenth aspect, further to the ninth aspect, the landmark server further comprises an advertising fee calculation section for calculating a fee corresponding to whatever landmark registered by the retailer terminal based on the number of landmark display times at least included in the compilation data.
As described above, in the tenth aspect, the advertising fee is determined based on the exposure of the landmark. Therefore, the price charged against the retail shops and companies can be fair and substantial.
According to an eleventh aspect, further to the first aspect, the retailer terminal comprises: a compilation information acquisition section for acquiring the compilation data transferred from the landmark server over the second communications line; a landmark information effect determination section for determining whether the registered landmark information is used with a predetermined frequency by referring to the compilation data acquired by the compilation information acquisition section; a landmark information change section for chancing the registered landmark information partially or entirely when the landmark information effect determination section determines that the registered landmark information is not used with the predetermined frequency; and a landmark information transfer section for transferring, when the landmark information is changed in the landmark information change section, the changed landmark information to the landmark server over the second communications line for newly registering the changed landmark information.
As described above, in the eleventh aspect, provided are landmark update systems enabling route guidance through the use of landmark information which is always accurate in navigation devices.
A twelfth aspect of the present invention is directed to a navigation device for updating landmark information, to be the latest, which is displayed together with a route for route guidance by communicating with a landmark server which offers the latest landmark information, and offering information about what landmark is displayed and what landmark is used to the landmark server. The navigation device of the twelfth aspect comprises: a cartographic data storage section for storing cartographic data; a landmark information storage section for storing the landmark information; a location detection section for detecting the user""s current location; a communications section for communicating with the landmark server; an output section for outputting the route guidance for display; an input section for inputting information needed at least for route search; a route selection section for selecting, responding to the information provided by the input section, a route from the user""s current location detected by the location detection section on the cartographic data; a landmark information management section for managing the landmark information stored in the landmark information storage section based on the latest landmark information received from the landmark server via the communications section if there needs to update landmark information corresponding to any landmark located on the route selected by the route selection section; and a guidance section for instructing the output section to display a map based on the cartographic data read from the cartographic data storage section, to display the route on the map displayed on the output section based on the route selected by the route selection section, and to perform landmark display on each appropriate location on the map displayed on the output section based on the landmark information read from the landmark information storage section. The landmark information management section generates the cumulative information based on information about what landmark is instructed by the guidance section to display and what landmark is used, and instructs the communications section to transfer the cumulative information.
As described above, in the twelfth aspect, in order to easily keep landmark information always accurate for route guidance by navigation devices, provided are landmark update systems and navigation devices capable of easily deriving, at the time of route guidance by feeding back to the server side what landmark information has been used, for example, landmark information which is appropriately maintained by companies and retail shops who are to be displayed as landmarks.
According to a thirteenth aspect, further to the twelfth aspect, the guidance section refers to the user""s current location detected by the location section, and when it is determined that the user actually reaches a specific displayed landmark by utilizing the same, generates the cumulative information based on information about the utilized landmark.
As described above, in the thirteenth aspect, the cumulative information includes information about points of the landmarks, for example. Therefore, by utilizing such information, the server side can know the advertising effect of the landmark.
According to a fourteenth aspect, further to the twelfth aspect, the navigation device further includes a real-time information acquisition section for acquiring real-time information which is a parameter indicating in what states various matters are, and based on the real-time information acquired by the real-time information acquisition section, the guidance section specifically determines landmark display.
As described above, in the fourteenth aspect, based on the change of the real-time information, any commercial information which is currently considered optimum is selected, for display, from those others covering various needs of the retail shops and companies represented as the landmarks.
According to a fifteenth aspect, further to the twelfth aspect, the cumulative information includes the number of times the landmark is displayed to a user on the navigation device, and point information in which the user""s visit to the displayed landmark is scored.
As described above, in the fifteenth aspect, the cumulative information includes the number of times a specific landmark is displayed and its point. Therefore, by utilizing such information, the server side can know the advertising effect of the landmark.
According to a sixteenth aspect, further to the twelfth aspect, the landmark information includes location information which indicates the location of a landmark, shape information which specifies the landmark by shape for display, and additional information which is displayed to the user together with the landmark.
As described above, in the sixteenth aspect, the landmark information includes additional information together with any other essential information for landmark display. Therefore, by using the additional information as companies"" advertisements, for example, the companies can have the merit of maintaining the landmark information, and the cost taken therefor can be reduced, whereby the frequency of updating the landmark information can be also reduced.
According to a seventeenth aspect, in further to the sixteenth aspect, the landmark information further includes a display condition which indicates a predetermined condition for displaying the additional information.
As described above, in the seventeenth aspect, by changing conditions for displaying the additional information, any commercial information which is currently considered optimum is selected, for display, from those others covering various needs of the retail shops and companies represented as the landmarks.
These and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.